Many users have had experiences with the use of automated speech-recognition based call routing systems for accessing data and services by telephone. Such systems have proliferated lately with the advent of more accurate spoken command-and-control and continuous speech recognition systems for limited domains. Even when the scope of an application is restricted, however, such systems can produce frustrating failures. To address user frustration, many designers put in place options for callers to be immediately routed to a live, human operator. Beyond speech recognition systems, other automated systems have been deployed such as the use of touch-tone driven menu systems. Such systems may frustrate users in providing a fixed set of options that either may not appear to offer the right options, offer options that have understandable relevance, and/or may appear to route the caller to a frustrating sequence of options rather than converging quickly to a desired setting.
Automated call handling systems have provided organizations with an opportunity to reduce the costs of handling incoming calls. As a consequence, many companies utilize touch-tone or dial-tone interactive voice-response systems. Unfortunately, callers frequently complain that touch-tone menus are difficult to use and frustrating. Callers in fact frequently seek assistance from a live operator at the first opportunity. To improve user experience with call handling systems, many companies have been turning to spoken dialog systems. These systems utilize automatic speech recognition (ASR) to facilitate requests in natural language. Although customers generally prefer natural language to touch-tone menus, enterprises are discovering that they still fall short of the quality of service that a human operator can provide.
In attempting to provide the best of both automation and live customer service, spoken dialog systems often resort to ad-hoc rules for dispatching calls. Even when these rules are tuned from data, the decision to transfer a call typically does not take into consideration the real-time stakes, such as the cost of customer time and the loss of return on investment.